As I enter my senior year of college, I’ve found myself reminiscing on earlier years of my education. I can recall different words of advice and a variety of emotions and experiences I had.
While not everyone chooses the college route, most of us have the high school experience in common. I graduated from a smaller school with about ninety kids in my class. I was an athlete, an honor roll student and I was involved in numerous clubs. I would describe my experience as rewarding, toxic, memorable, and uncomfortable. You could not pay me any amount of money to go back to high school. I am content with having little to no connection to the place that once consumed my life.
You have all the time to choose whatever you want to do with your time.
What was your high school experience like? Do you miss high school? Do you wish to relive it?
Recently, one of my professors admitted to the class that her early 20s were some of the worst years of her life. She too explained that nothing could convince her to relive those years of her life, let alone high school. Hearing this shared experience from a middle-aged woman was reassuring and validating. I think it’s easy for us to forget just how long our lives really are. When your world feels like it’s collapsing at the age of twenty-one, remember you have yet to turn thirty, forty or fifty and so on. My grandparents are eighty-four years old. That’s a big number, and I can only hope to live a long and fulfilling life like they continue to.
Have you been told that high school would be the best years of your life? Are you scared to have more and more birthdays?
High school ended for all of us. I’m sure some people experienced tears of sadness, joy, or of uncertainty when their high school days were no more. I was ready to leave and never look back. College has given me a new purpose and lifestyle. I’m not claiming to have everything figured out by any means, but I am confident in my choices. I don’t feel guilty for forgetting about high school and the people I once knew, because I know I have grown in my own, best way.
I’m learning to embrace the passing of time, and what I choose to do with it. We’ll continue to have birthdays, and high school will become a distant memory for all of us.